Yosef Shiloach (1941-2011), was one of Israel’s most popular and beloved film and theatre actors. One of Shiloach’s most memorable theatre parts was The Captain in Hanoch Levin’s The Child Dreams; a 1993 coproduction between the Habima and Haifa theatres. Shiloach launched his film career in the 1960s and his body-of-work boasts some of Israeli cinema’s finest and most unforgettable parts to date. Highlights of those include The Policeman (Ephraim Kishon, 1970), The House on Chelouche Street (Moshé Mizrahi, 1973), and Desperado Square (Benny Toraty, 2011) for which Shiloach won a Best Supporting Actor Ophir award. That said, for the majority of the public, Shiloach is mostly known from the many lowbrow comedies and melodramas (aka ‘Bourekas Films’) he’d appeared in where he would usually play a host of highly stereotypical and caricaturised Middle Eastern (‘Mizrahi’) characters using a thick, exaggerated Iranian accent.
Highlights of Shiloach’s film credits include: Margo Sheli (‘my Margo’) (Menahem Golan, 1969), Attack at Dawn (Menahem Golan, 1970), Katz and Carrasso (Menahem Golan, 1971), I Love you Rosa (Moshe Mizrahi, 1972), Daughters, Daughters (Moshé Mizrahi, 1973), Murder C.O.D. (Assi Dayan, 1973), Snooker (Boaz Davidson, 1975), Diamonds (Menahem Golan, 1975), Saint Cohen (Assi Dayan, 1975), Street 60 (George Obadiah, 1976), Save the Lifeguard (Uri Zohar, 1977), The End of Milton Levy (Nissim Dayan, 1981), Private Popsicle (The fourth instalment in the Popsicle film franchise; Boaz Davidson, 1982), Green (Gideon Kolirin, 1984), Up your Anchor (The sixth instalment in the Popsicle film franchise; Dan Wolman, 1985), Alex is Lovesick (Boaz Davidson, 1986), Lelyasede (aka Passover Fever) (Shemi Zarhin, 1995), and Women (Moshé Mizrahi, 1996).
